Apoptosis is the mechanism of cell death activated in mammalian cells following exposure to a wide variety of stimuli including anticancer agents. The chemotherapeutic agents that have been identified as being apoptosis-inducing include etoposide, dexamethasone, vincristine, cis-platinum, cyclophosphamide, paclitaxel, 5′-fluorodeoxyuridine, 5′-fluorouracil and adriamycin. The efficiency of the anticancer agents seems to be related to the intrinsic propensity of the tumor cells to respond to these agents by apoptosis. This indicates that apoptosis may be the primary mechanism in antineoplastic agents.
Apoptosis is an orchestrated series of events through which the cell precipitates its own death. The stages of apoptosis include cell shrinkage, chromatin condensation, nuclear segmentation and internucleosomal fragmentation of DNA, resulting in the generation of apoptotic bodies. Induction of apoptosis has been used as an index to screen for new anticancer substances and to study the anticancer mechanisms of chemotherapeutic drugs.
Glucosamine resulting from the hydrolysis of chitosan has been reported to exert several biological activities and recently there was a tendency to synthesize glucosamine derivatives having different functional groups important for some specific activities.
The object of the present invention is to prepare quaternized amino glucosamine and to provide a composition for anticancer capable of increasing anticancer treatment effect by exerting anticancer effect via induction of apoptosis by quaternized amino glucosamine.